Why Do Atheists Get Married? Asks Christian Woman

The simple answer to the nut job respondent is that marriage is also civil contract which provides both parties with legal protections. Has she missed the gay marriage debate or something?

If Jane still needs an answer many social workers and psychologists have training in marriage counseling. Their approach will be secular unless they are a pastoral counselor which is usually a member of the clergy with a social work or psychology degree.

Where does this lunatic idea that Jesus created marriage come from? Weren’t people married in the old testament?

Why marry? For the tax break of course, duh…

If Jesus created marriage does that mean his parents were living in sin?

Jesus created marriage?

I don’t understand why so many Christians think they are the authority on marriage. The Bible is full of incest, polygamy, and other odd sexual mores and relationships (Tamar, anyone?). And where does Jesus, the supposedly single guy, say much of anything about marriage? Paul railed against it. So when did marriage become a Christian thing? And yeah, my favorite part of the Bible is the wedding of Adam and Eve, so they wouldn’t have to live in sin!

Why get married? Because you want to! It’s not a religious thing, it’s a cultural thing. Maybe even genetic. That’s why you get married. Even non Judeo Christian cultures have the concept of marriage.

defiantskeptic and bd. You’re forgetting your Mr Deity videos. In the first season Mr Deity made Jesus a full partner. Since Mr Deity created everything, Jesus gets credit too since he’s a full partner!

Some Christians genuinely believe that this question is a “gotcha” moment for atheists, but it only reveals their cultural ignorance and religious bias. Moronic stuff.

I have some bad news for those singles who think there are tax breaks for being married. Not only are there no tax breaks, but there’s a tax penalty for being married!

Speaking from personal experience a dual income couple in an East Coast city can expect to get socked big time once they’re married.

Why do atheists marry? To provide positive role models for Christians of course.

For the insurance benefits, of course.

Been happily married for 13 years, been together for 16, “shacking up” for a few. 🙂

Right now all I can muster is a facepalm. I can’t believe the blinding, egocentric stupidity in her statement.

Response: “If you think atheism is a religious view, then you’re too dumb to offer me advice on anything else.”

(Wipes hands)

Next?

I personally will never get “married” since marriage is all about property and power of husband over wife, just ask all the fundies. When some there is a civil union of equal partners that recognizes all kinds of family choices, then I’ll consider it. But the whole patriarchal “I give my virgin daughter to you for a price” just makes “marriage” a rank prison sentence. It’s not about love, and that’s what really tweeks the fundies. Because in a gay marriage, who owns who?

Now if they’d just fix the laws that loving couples who have tied their futures together get the same legal and civil rights as “married” folks get, only without the wife-rape benefits, it would be a much nicer world.

Jesus invented marriage and marriage is a Christian institution, that’s why Muslims, Buddhists, Taoists, and the rest of those heathens don’t get married. Marriages don’t exist in any culture outside of those that believe in Christianity. Duh. Everyone knows that.

Jebus invented marriage????? I recall that in the biblical myths, Adam and Eve were married, heck, even Mary and Joseph were married!

I wrote about this a while ago – here’s a taste:

We entered a union with each other that makes us better people, that strengthens us, and that offers us support, love, and companionship for a lifelong partnership. It’s a promise we’ve made to each other, and for us, that carries far more weight than any promise we could make to a deity, even if one existed to adjudicate it.

The important thing to remember is that good ideas are not exclusive to one religion, worldview, or philosophy. Because a social tradition is perceived to have a religious root, it doesn’t negate its benefits or wisdom in a secular context. Of course, marriage is not necessarily religious in origin to begin with (and plenty of animal species mate for life, presumably doing so without guidance from a holy text), though it has that association to many today. But even if it had been spawned exclusively from theism and superstition, the social convention of two human beings opting to become official partners in a loving relationship has purely secular, practical arguments in its favor that require no supernatural covenants layered on top. So the god of my idolatry is no god at all, but a real, beautiful, wonderful human being.

Why do Atheists get married? To cross the freakin’ road. Seriously when you consider that about 50% of marriages end in divorce in the U.S. and only about 10-15% of the population is Atheist I would ask the bigger question: Why do so many christians get marriage wrong?

I agree about the other posters’ point about how atheists can and do love each other, but the queer leftist in me is highly resistent to the notion that marriage is a good thing.

‘Why do people marry anyway?” Engels ‘Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State’ does a pretty good job of answering that one. “It was not in any way the fruit of individual sex-love, with which it had nothing whatever to do; marriages remained as before marriages of convenience. It was the first form of the family to be based, not on natural, but on economic conditions – on the victory of private property over primitive, natural communal property. The Greeks themselves put the matter quite frankly: the sole exclusive aims of monogamous marriage were to make the man supreme in the family, and to propagate, as the future heirs to his wealth, children indisputably his own. Otherwise, marriage was a burden, a duty which had to be performed, whether one liked it or not, to gods, state, and one’s ancestors. In Athens the law exacted from the man not only marriage but also the performance of a minimum of so-called conjugal duties.” “The modern individual family is founded on the open or concealed domestic slavery of the wife, and modern society is a mass composed of these individual families as its molecules.”
Jane apparantly sees marriage as a duty which has to be performed, regardless of desire, to one’s god. So, without that god, if we are not concerned with maintaining that male-dominated property struture, we should dispose of marriage altogether. Instead of noting that one type of relationship is given greater legal rights and presuming that from there we should follow that relationship model, we should ask instead why that model is given such a priviledged status.

Sorry, misread the original post, replace Jane with the counsilor.

You took me away from sodomy for this? What a twit.

Aren’t marriages just pagan ceremonial theatrics?

If I am correct, there should be no legal benefits or recognition.

If this is correct, those who want to get married in a church should do it privately, like a closed-casket funeral, where there are no legal benefits (except those in the will).

I suppose I should be more up on all this, being in Massachusetts and gay. But I don’t believe in marriage either way and find it to be a very selfish act.

Most people I see just that are married have done it for few reasons. My parent’s generation did because they were “supposed to” to raise a family and blah, blah, blah…

Now-a-days, no one needs to pro-create to have little helpers with the farm or family. My dad was the youngest of 16, parents from Sicily, there WAS a reason to have many little helpers in that tribe.

Today I see people who just “Want”;

“I want a family”….um…didn’t you come from one?

“I want to raise a child to have all the things I didn’t” …um…need therapy much? It’s not going to bring back your childhood.

“I want a child because…well because I just do”…..um….go adopt one; you would make a world of difference if you did.

So why all the baby bashing…well, Marriage usually is followed by it and there is such focus on teen moms and single parents. Even the gays have gotten in on the whole movement, but at least they are trying to adopt the unwanted children of the world.

Seeing as 50% of marriages end in divorce, and seeing as most religious folks believe that majority says it is a sacred union and we should honor the majority, I say, majority it is! As more than 50% of these sacred unions end in divorce, it’s time to put it back where it belongs…Democratically of course.

Majority Rule:
More than half of Religious Unions end in divorce, therefore, the legal status should be taken away from any involved in these said Unions.
The fact that over 50% of these said Unions leave single parents, “father-less” children, and more economically struggling communities and cultures that drain the “system” for hand-outs and entitlement programs, all legal status and benefit should be removed from any further said Unions.
This will leave a community to a “Free Market” where each American can utilize their abilities to work hard, pay taxes and live freely among others.

Sounds stupid?
Has a ring of truth though…

Marriage is wrong. It creates artificial bonds between people leading to a financial penalty should they wish to separate.

That any state should reward (or punish) people for their choice of living arrangements is immoral and all atheists and liberals should be against it.

The real problem is that, in America, there is such a huge benefit to being married: healthcare for the spouse and offspring. This is a terrible affliction that America should deal with. It not only forces couples to get married but allows companies to treat their workers like crap knowing the employee cannot leave as it not only affects them, but the healthcare of their whole family. Universal healthcare would solve this.

To me, marriage is a public declaration of love by people, one that by law only two people can do, which is wrong. They then go and sign a legal document that ties their finances together in a crazy way and that’s it. The state then sticks its nose in and says, “Ah, you two are married rather than living together, have a bunch of benefits.” The state has no business in the promotion of marriage.

The religious see it as god’s will that a man and a woman be bonded and that’s their right.

However, a look at the history of marriage would suggest that it has always been about men’s power over women. Initially women were viewed as makeweights in political alliances or trade negotiations. Then as property. Then they were breeding stock. Then they were housewives, unable to earn enough to survive without a husband. Now we have finally got to a stge where women can not only earn enough for themselves, but enough for any children they have. Thus there is no need for marriage at all.

Humans have had ceremonies when forming relationships expected to be long lasting,long before christianity was even thought of id say.

As some people have suggested it can be kind of like some form of ownership.But maybe often in tribal situations it was more carried out to save on misunderstandings that could sometimes lead to anger and violence and even some people getting killed.

And the female who wore a ring or whatever it was,no longer needed to keep telling hound dog suitors, time and time and time again where to f**king go!.

It just often saved on a lot of problems.

If Jesus created marriage does that mean his parents were living in sin?

I thought this was a matter of record…

I’m a little disappointed with some of the anti-marriage rhetoric on here. especially with the accusation that marriage is inherently for the purpose of male dominance. Suggesting that one needs to be a christian to marry is not any more offensive than being told that one needs to be a misogynist.

Man, I had a completely civil marriage. Not a pastor or priest in sight. The “reading” was from Goodrich vs. Massachusettes. No one gave me away. In fact, my spouse and I walked down the aisle together.

Atheists should be used to being mindful of religious traditions. I think it’s a fallacy to say, “All marriages and all wedding ceremonies are oppressive of women”.

Also, I got a huuge tax break when I got married because Spouse was still in Grad school. Now that he’s unemployed I’ll get a bigger one. Not that I’ll turn down a second income 🙂

Sarah TX said:

Man, I had a completely civil marriage. Not a pastor or priest in sight. The “reading” was from Goodrich vs. Massachusettes. No one gave me away. In fact, my spouse and I walked down the aisle together.

We did a quick signing of papers in our local city hall with our two witnesses. The whole thing probably took about 15 minutes.

After that, we went out to the town where most of my family lives and just had a big party. The only whiff of ceremony we had was when our parents each gave a little speech to “bless” the marriage (in the sense of formally approving of the choice of spouse and welcoming that spouse into the family), and then my husband and I gave our vows.

Both my husband and I are very iffy about having someone be in a position of authority to make the marriage “official,” so we didn’t even want a humanist officiant present. We just wanted family and that was that.

It’s such a shame that the media and our society tells us that a wedding must have such-and-such components when, in fact, these really aren’t needed. For us, the signing of the documents was just a legal thing that could be done privately – what counted was the official presenting of our relationship to the family, almost like saying “okay, I’m keeping this one. You can let yourself get attached to him.” Plus, any excuse for a party, right?

I’m sad to see the old and completely useless “50% of American marriages end in divorce” statistical punditry being thrown around as it is commonly misinterpreted – that every marriage has a 50/50 chance of failure.

In reality, divorce rates vary widely depending on demographics, education levels and # of prior marriages. Couples under the age of 25, couples with low levels of education, and couples who have been married previously distort the statistic with substantially higher divorce rates than other demographic categories. My fiance and I, being 28 and 32 respectively and holding post-graduate degrees will have, statistically speaking, a lower than 10% likelihood of divorce.

The 50% statistic may be technically true but it is entirely meaningless even when interpreted correctly, and entirely false the way it is commonly interpreted and thrown about (dunno – think they’ll make it? 50/50!! Um, no).

There was a time when a marriage was the official binding of two families, and the ceremony was a chance for them to get to know each other. The couple frequently didn’t love each other, or maybe didn’t even know each other, and the motives were financial or political.

Then it was a way to obligate the partners to provide for children during the eras when women frequently were unable or not allowed to support themselves.

This “love” thing seems to have come in a bit before the divorce rate started rising alarmingly. How much do overly optimistic expectations based on affection or hormones lead to disappointment and then to dissolution?

I see the civil contract and the ritual ceremony as having one common purpose though: They both cement a start date and make it so that the parties can’t later say they didn’t mean it. That gives each partner some assurance they didn’t misunderstand the terms of the arrangement.
It is so easy to fall into a relationship of living together wherein one party is counting on a lifetime together and the other is just waiting for something better to come along, that making it plain and incontrovertible has value.
As for Mary, if Torah or Sharia Law had been applied, she would have been stoned, and Jesus would have died in the womb.

Meh… I was going to reply, but decided to just sodomize some more instead.

Arctic Ape, it’s been a while since I got married, but basically there is a religious and civil part of being married. The clergyman can perform the religious part and sign the civil documents which makes it legally binding.

For example Jews sign a Ketubah during their wedding to be married in their religion. But they still need to sign and file the forms with the civil authorities to make it binding in the eyes of the government.

For people who aren’t religious a Justice of the Peace can perform a wedding. In some states it is possible to get married by a friend if they file the right forms.

A complication to the above statement is that the US is 50 states which each might have slightly different laws about how this works.

I hope this woman has her tubes tied; it would be criminal to have her reproduce.

To answer her question, they get married
because they are in love or in lust or both.
Just like everyone else.

RobertMadewell, I am the “Jane” from this post. The reason I contacted Hemant was because I was so shocked that someone could say something this sterotypical, even a fundie. Since you think this was made up, I have posted the link to the message board page below. You may or may not be able to view it because sometimes only members can view posts in certain forums.

I responded to her with the civil/legal reasons that many posters suggested and have not received a response from her although several people came to my defense

http://www.cafemom.com/group/33200/forums/read/10018840/Why_is_it_easier_to_get_a_divorce_than_to_get_counseling

personally, I think some christians should be comedians. this is too funny to take seriously

I don’t understand why people get married,* either, Crazy Christian Woman Who is Also Rude, but I am not going to ask complete strangers to explain themselves.** And even if I did, I would accept that people have their reasons, even if I don’t understand them. People do all sorts of things I don’t understand, but I live and let live, and focus on more important things.

*Oh my Dawkins, a lifetime is a long time to like one person.

** I might. But I would at least pretend to be embarrassed, and I would not assume their marriage didn’t count just because they were a different religion than me.

Tulani writes:

“And bd, love your comment about if Jesus created marriage then wouldn’t his parents have been living in sin!”

Of course Mary and Joseph were living in sin; that’s why they called it the “virgin birth” (wink wink.)

On reading the current laws of MA, the situation may have changed. They seem to have listed the acceptable officiants specifically and they have left out quite a number of organizations.
They have, however, included the American Ethical Union in the list but it looks like a Wikkan would have to apply to be recognized.
Still, since they accept “a duly ordained minister of the gospel in good and regular standing with his church or denomination” then a ULC ordination should qualify. There is no need to have any Faith to be ordained there, just the intent to “do what is right.”
And though it seems to be a joke (I thought I was the victim of a prank when I was encouraged to sign up–it was free, so I figured no harm done) it is legitimate and comes in handy.

Thank you, Grimalkin, MH, JB.

So it seems that officiant rights can be granted for nearly anyone who asks for them, at least in some places. Here in Finland they are limited to the two “national” churches (Lutheran and Orthodox) and a few types of civil officials. If you want, say, a Catholic or Muslim wedding, you need an additional civil ceremony. The Finnish Freethinker Union has critisized this, saying that officiant rights should be granted for either all religious/secular organizations or none of them. I think that latter is the case in many European countries.

I love what bd wrote:

If Jesus created marriage does that mean his parents were living in sin?

Marriage is nothing more than a civil contract. Some people may include God and/or Jesus as a part of their marriage (religious orgy thought in my head), but in the end, it’s just a legal means of saying “we are protected in the eyes of the law”

My advice to Jane, as has already been given by others, is to seek out non-religious marriage counselors to help find the non-religious issues in this marriage.

Being open and honest here, a good part of my divorce was based on me not being able to do the religion thing anymore. And if your marriage is tied to that in any sort of way, there will be some issues that may not be able to be resolved.

Folks, Mary and Joesph were NOT living in sin. The bible duly records that YHWVH fisted the baby Jesus into the womb of Mary. (Ouch!) The conflicting genealogies given for Joesph in the gospels are in no way relevant to the parentage of Jesus Christ, because Joesph was not his father.

If I recall, St. Paul was kind of lukewarm at best on marriage. He was basically like “okay, if you just can’t keep it in your pants, at least get hitched, ok?”, but would’ve preferred everyone stay celibate, single, and focused on God/Jesus…

Then there was St. Jerome, Mr. aka “blessed is he who smashes his testicles with a stone.”

I read up on these guys when I was a teen going through puberty and decided Xtianity was totally f*cked, pardon the pun.

If I ever do remarry, it will have to be with another atheist next time around. First time around I married a wavering Christian who seemed on the verge of agnosticism/atheism. I ended up divorcing a control freak who morphed back into a raging fundie.

Marriage has its roots in property law and inheritance rights, not religion. Even in the old testament, marriage is often more about property and inheritance than religion or love.

I like to think we’ve evolved beyond that now. Women are not chattel, men do not have to be paid for marrying a woman, and sex is (can be) an expression of love, not an exchange of physical service for recognition of resultant offspring.

This woman is apparently ignorant (willfully or otherwise) of many things outside her own context, and she lacks the skepticism and inquisitiveness to re-examine her own basic assumptions regarding things for which she has no firsthand knowledge.

Why get married if you’re an atheist? Well, you don’t have to, but it’s a formal, legal declaration of two people’s life long commitment to each other, and it does greatly simplify inheritance rights with or without offspring. It need have nothing to do with belief in any deities or supernatural entities, real or imagined.

Personally, I don’t get married. I do indeed believe that marriage is a religious institution, and don’t need a religious institution to validate the relationship I have with my long term girlfriend.

Well, it’s really hard to type during sodomy, but….

Marriage is a public* commitment between two people to be the principle support for each other. Society recognizes the value of two people having such mututal support and sometimes “sponsors” such commitment with special inheritance and other law. Typically the marriage also gives the parties some legal obligation towards and control over each other.

There’s no particular reason, with the current version of marriage (whatever it came from historically), why it should be restricted to religious people, and every reason it might well appeal to most people at some stage of their lives.

[* I object to marriages that are not public, whether they are in restricted buildings (eg. temples) or in hostile environments (eg. underwater), since I hold that a marriage should be a joint statement to society-at-large.]

My wife (nominally Christian) and I (nominally atheist) have always told anyone who asks that marriage, the ceremony, is for everyone else, and that if you are not already committed to each other before you walk up the aisle a piece of paper and a prayer are not going to keep you together.

So why did we get married? To show to our friends, family, and community that we had made a committment to each other and that we intended to keep it.

Funny story: We were married in my wife’s family’s church where the vows ended with the bride and groom saying “I will, with the help of God.” The pastor literally would not perform the ceremony if I didn’t add the second clause. Since I was far more interested in marrying my wife than making a scene, I went ahead and said “with the help of God.” Ever since, my wife and I have said that if we didn’t stay married it would be because God didn’t do his part.

Funnier story: The pastor that officiated at our wedding was fired by the church a year later. Turned out that he was having an affair with one of the member of the church — looks like God wasn’t interested in him staying married. 22 years later we’re still together even if God wasn’t interested.

Responding to a comment like Jane’s is pretty much pointless. She believes in an invisible man in the sky. How can you reason with someone like that?

I am currently engaged to my long term boyfriend of some 15 years or so. We are often asked the same question.

For us Atheists marriage is about the love for each other not the need to please a higher power.

Some people think because we do not believe in god we are not capable of knowing love and that is absurd.

The only thing to say to such ignorance is we love each other just like Christians love each other we just choose to have a wedding without the bible.

Hindu is the oldest of the world’s major religions. It evolved from the Vedic religion of ancient India and they performed marriage; however you will never be able to convince a Christian that the world is older that 6000+ years old and you will never convince them that the dinosaur came before Adam and Eve.

 saw something on a friends wall about how ATHEISTS are ruining marriage and what it stands for…. HERE IS MY ANSWER(I am ATHEIST)”I resent that being an atheist. You do not have to believe in god to have a loving relationship based on trust , love and honor. Actually, being the only atheist in my family, I am the only one to yet have a divorice. kinda says something about religion. It’s the peop…le that make marriage, not who you pray to. PS, I was also married in the same church as my mother and father on their anniversary, by our town preacher(who knows I am an atheist), he was all for it, saying it was a union of love, not religion. ♥ Just something to think about.”Not trying to offend anyone, but I FIRMLY believe if you love someone(reguardless of gender, race, or religion) MARRIAGE is a union between 2 people. ANY 2 people. I want to point out also that a survey done by Barna Research Group (1999) shows 21% of Athiest have been divoriced compaired to 30% of Christians…..The world will never become a better place until people focus on the person, cause, or problem, INSTEAD of always focusing on RELIGION!